The federal agency charged with enforcing the nation's laws against money laundering has issued new guidelines suggesting that several parties in the Bitcoin economy qualify as Money Services Businesses under US law. MSBs must register with the federal government, collect information about their customers, and take steps to combat money laundering by their customers. The new guidelines do not mention Bitcoin by name, but there's little doubt which "de-centralized virtual currency" the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) had in mind when it drafted the new guidelines.

It seems that FinCEN has finally decided to opine on Bitcoin, without naming it specifically. This US pronouncement spells death to all “compliant” US Bitcoin companies that choose to remain based in the USA.

If a website violates Section 1140, and you link to it, your site violates Section 1140, and are liable for $5000 civil penalty for every click on that link; and so every website linking to your website would also be in violation, and so on, even if you have a commercial ad server company running the ads on your site and cannot click them because that would be cheating. besides, if a website convincingly pretends to be Feds and you do click the link, how would you know they're not?

Jessica and her family moved a to rural homestead in hopes of raising food for her kids who have extreme food allergies. After receiving a verbal okay from the township allowing livestock animals such as chickens and goats she purchased a plot of land outside of the town Williamstown, MI. Now, the town is informing her that she has violated zoning laws and to remove her animals. She is fighting back for her family against the town and has a pretty detailed story above.

Tax evasion, both at home and abroad, is stealing potentially tens of billions of dollars in revenue from federal coffers and ultimately sapping money out of the pockets of law-abiding Canadian taxpayers."People that don't pay their fair share of the taxes means the rest of us have to pay more," says Liberal Sen. Percy Downe, who has been leading the fight in Parliament on tax evasion. "It's a tremendous revenue loss to the country." He wants the government to boost the CRA's funding for fighting tax evasion.

Limiting supply has clearly been a huge plus for the BTC. Becoming known as a currency for illegal drugs and gambling is more problematic, of course. But let’s not forget that the U.S. Treasury printed 3 billion $100 bills in the 2012 Fiscal Year. Most of those (the Federal Reserve estimates 80%) go overseas and many of them simply facilitate the global drug and arms trade, not to mention tax evasion and human trafficking. So the BTC’s growing role in the same types of business might qualify it for “Reserve currency” status sooner than anyone thinks.

Indeed, the libertarian crowd has been increasingly vocal at Obama-era CPACs—Ron Paul has routinely won the annual straw poll—but this year, the Rand Paul Brigades look something like an occupying force. Everywhere one turns, there are “Stand With Rand” signs, stickers, and T-shirts (a volunteer told me he had handed out a thousand shirts in just over two hours). In the rush to see the Kentucky senator’s speech, one Paul supporter thrust a “Stand With Rand” placard into a young conservative’s hands.

Brian Krebs has always been a trailblazer among security reporters. His exposés completely shut down a California hosting service that coddled spammers and child pornographers and severely disrupted an organized crime syndicate known as RBN. More recently, his investigative journalism has followed the money to the people who sell malware exploit kits, illicitly procured credit reports, and DoS services in underground forums. Now, Krebs has achieved a decidedly more grim distinction.

The below interactive infographic shows the top 10 most commonly searched terms on porn sites over a 6 month period.
You can check out every state in the U.S. and then see what other countries around the world are searching for.

- Eileen Hart objected to a mandatory re-evaluation of her property value that would drastically increase her tax rates
- She read the Constitution at a tax dispute forum and called one of the appraisers a “pencil-pusher”
- One of tax officials called 911 saying Hart threatened to return with a gun, but she unequivocally denies the claim
- Hart was charged with making “terroristic threats” and told that if she didn’t turn over her weapons, her bail would be prohibitively high and it was unclear how long she would have to remain in jail

According to the Dallas Morning News, on Monday afternoon a Fort Worth police officer used his Taser to subdue a 19-year-old man dressed as "Lady Liberty" when he refused to comply with an order. Liberty was allegedly standing on a median, soliciting customers for Liberty Tax Services. Attempting to gain control of [Liberty], the arresting officer shot him in the small of his back, which allegedly had no effect. He was tased a second time in the forehead and below his left ear before police could place him under arrest.

Growing your own food is like printing your own money. Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA -in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. Why? For fun, for defiance, for beauty and to offer some alternative to fast food in a community where "the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys." Gangsta gardener.

He says he put his life on the line to stop a killer — and claims cops sat back and watched. But city lawyers are arguing that the police had no legal duty to protect Joseph Lozito, the Long Island dad stabbed seven times trying to subdue madman Maksim Gelman — a courtroom maneuver the subway hero calls “disgraceful.” A judge is currently deciding whether Lozito, who sued the city last year for failing to prevent the attack, will get his day in court.

The unregulated digital world of Bitcoins suffered another flash-crash last night. According to Ars Technica, the 23% plungefest in the value of the digital currency (the second in a week) was due not to Waddel & Reed, not HFT algos, but 'forking' Cryptographic algos gone wild agreeing on different (legacy) keys as being correct - akin to finding Tungsten in your Gold bars (and hence the drop in the value). This latest glitch is different from the problem that caused Bitcoin prices to briefly crash to zero in June of 2011.